Corcoran Rhiannon, Bentall Richard P, Rowse Georgina, Moore Rosanne, Cummins Sinead, Blackwood Nigel, Howard Robert, Shryane Nick M
Division of Psychiatry, School of Community Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, UK.
Cogn Neuropsychiatry. 2011 Nov;16(6):547-61. doi: 10.1080/13546805.2011.574418. Epub 2011 Aug 15.
INTRODUCTION. This study used Item-Response Theory (IRT) to model the psychometric properties of a false belief picture sequencing task. Consistent with the mental time travel hypothesis of paranoia, we anticipated that performance on this deductive theory of mind (ToM) task would not be associated with the presence of persecutory delusions but would be related to other clinical, cognitive, and demographic factors. METHOD. A large (N=237) and diverse clinical and nonclinical sample differing in levels of depression and paranoid ideation performed 2 ToM tasks: the false belief sequencing task and a ToM stories task that was used to assess the validity of the false belief sequencing task as a measure of ToM. RESULTS. A unidimensional IRT model was found to fit the data well. Latent ToM ability as measured by the false belief sequencing task was negatively related with age and positively with IQ. In contrast to the ToM stories measure, there was no association between clinical diagnosis or symptoms and false belief picture sequencing after controlling for age and IQ. CONCLUSIONS. In line with mental time travel hypothesis of paranoia (Corcoran, 2010 ), performance on this deductive nonverbal ToM task is not related to the presence of paranoid symptoms. This measure is best suited for assessing ToM functioning where participants' performance falls just short of the average latent ToM ability. Furthermore, it is sensitive to the effects of increasing age and decreasing IQ.
引言。本研究运用项目反应理论（IRT）对错误信念图片排序任务的心理测量特性进行建模。与偏执的心理时间旅行假说一致，我们预期在这项演绎心理理论（ToM）任务上的表现与被害妄想的存在无关，但会与其他临床、认知和人口统计学因素相关。方法。一个规模较大（N = 237）且多样化的临床和非临床样本，其抑郁水平和偏执观念各异，完成了两项ToM任务：错误信念排序任务和一项ToM故事任务，后者用于评估错误信念排序任务作为ToM测量指标的有效性。结果。发现一个单维IRT模型能很好地拟合数据。通过错误信念排序任务测得的潜在ToM能力与年龄呈负相关，与智商呈正相关。与ToM故事测量不同，在控制年龄和智商后，临床诊断或症状与错误信念图片排序之间没有关联。结论。与偏执的心理时间旅行假说（科科伦，2010年）一致，在这项演绎非言语ToM任务上的表现与偏执症状的存在无关。该测量方法最适合评估参与者表现略低于平均潜在ToM能力时的ToM功能。此外，它对年龄增长和智商降低的影响敏感。
